We Live We Live

Brandy Nālani McDougall

^{For Palestinian poet}^{Reefat Alareer}^{, with lines from his poems}

^{We live.}
^{We live.}
^{We do.}
^——^{Refaat Alareer}

You were killed today December 7th
my birthday It was today son of Shujaiya

in an Israel airstrike you were killed
visiting your brother’s home in Gaza City

Today, the anniversary of when my grandfather
only 12 years old climbed onto the roof

                        of his dormitory                      to watch the bombs
            fall on the American naval base         built over Puʻuloa

Your brother               your sister                   and four of her
            children were killed, too                     You were

just a few years younger than me

This morning after Israel’s birds of death

screeched down toward you my children woke up
on their own in Honolulu though it was still dark

                        their breath      like soil           their voices     like soil
            their kisses     like soil           blinking when touched by rain

And my youngest        rubbing her eyes                     asked if
            it was my birthday—              And am I now 47?—

before singing in our ancestors’ language
we are learning to speak together after

the wreckage of English and Americans
And my oldest who is learning to speak

                        in speech therapy        giggled            in her grogginess
            then sang                     her own song too

And what did I do       to deserve                    such tenderness
            this early morning?    Or to live                     this long

having heard bombs and guns fired only
from a distance? Having stood safely

                        scared as a child                     and angry        as an adult
            at the sound     of our lands and waters— Kahoʻolawe

Pōhakuloa Mākua Wahiawa battered
bruised burned poisoned in live fire practice?

By bombs that may have fallen on you or close
to you on those you loved full-hearted recklessly

those you learned to cling to even harder bombs
that may have hurt or killed children like mine who

could still sing? And you what did you do
to deserve your shorter poet’s life except

tell the truth and sow the seeds of songs
in your students except grow your love for them

for your people for your land and country
for the promise within the wreckage

that is this English echoing
all the way here to Honolulu where I resisted

opening my TikTok feed to savor my children’s sleepy
sweetness a little longer before facing

that birthdays are death days too?

                                    That each day              bombs and schools
                        hospitals and houses               fall                   each day children

are pulled from rubble children are pulled away
  crying from rubble that buried their mothers
       that they feel   alone that their hurt seeps
                        down into the dirt       as they look heaven in the eye

somewhere in Gaza? That they have written
their names and their parents’ names on their limbs

so their bodies or maybe just these parts
if that is all that’s left can be known

to anyone who finds them?

That                 if they if you   must die
            so easily uprooted       from the earth             so harshly unsung

let it be a tale and why not write poems to birth
the strongest words of love like rocks?

                        like seeds?                   like songs?      like names?
            And why not               hold those rocks         in your hands?

Your arms? Pull them to your chest like children
lighting the darkest of birthday mornings?

Why not feel their full weight and cling
even harder to live to live dear poet

of Shujaiya of Gaza of Palestine
just before they just before you

take flight?